Markets & Finance

Bid & Ask

June 17, 2010

Real Estate

Ward Lay, the son of Frito-Lay (PEP) co-founder Herman Lay, has put his 180,000-acre ranch in the Patagonia region of Argentina on the market for $30 million. Located 75 miles north of the resort city of Bariloche, Estancia Alicura includes a five-bedroom main house, two guest houses, stag-hunting and trout- fishing operations, and the chance to call Ted Turner neighbor.

Cable: $1.4bn

The price Cablevison (CVC), the fifth-largest cable provider in the U.S., is paying for Bresnan Communications. The purchase gives New York-based Cablevision a larger foothold in the high-speed Internet market by adding more than 300,000 cable and broadband subscribers in four Western states.

Art Market

A limestone head by the 20th-century Italian sculptor Amedeo Modigliani fetched $53 million at auction in Paris. The June 14 sale by Christie's set a record for any work sold at a French auction. The anonymous buyer paid more than 10 times the low estimate for the sculpture.

Health Care

Allscripts-Misys Healthcare Solutions (MDRX) offered $1.3 billion in stock for the medical software provider Eclipsys. The combined company will capitalize on the $30 billion included in last year's stimulus bill for the adoption of electronic medical records.

Technology

Reliance Industries entered India's wireless Internet market by agreeing to pay $1 billion for 95 percent of Infotel Broadband, which recently acquired several licenses to provide nationwide service at a government auction. The move puts Reliance's billionaire owner, Mukesh Ambani, in direct competition with his younger brother Anil for the first time since the two split their late father's industrial group in 2005. The siblings scrapped their noncompete agreement last month.

Collectibles

A 64-year-old bottle of Scotch whisky sold for $37,245 at a Bonhams auction in Edinburgh. The Glenfiddich is one of 61 bottles of its kind. An 1850 Bowmore sold in Glasgow in 2007 still holds the record for a bottle of Scotch at more than $59,000.

Insurance

Philadelphia-based Lincoln National (LNC) sold $1.1 billion in notes and stock. The lion's share of the money will go to repay the $950 million federal bailout the company accepted last year. Lincoln purchased a savings and loan late in 2008 to qualify for the government aid, but says it is no longer struggling.

Food: $1.3bn

The price that Marfrig Alimentos, Latin America's second-largest beef producer, is paying for Keystone Foods, a major processor. The seller is private equity firm Lindsay Goldberg. The purchase will turn São Paulo-based Marfrig into a supplier of chicken nuggets, hamburgers, and other meat products to McDonald's (MCD), Subway (CPB), and Campbell Soup.

Sports

The New York Jets are cutting the price of about 18,000 seat licenses by as much as 50 percent. For a one-time fee, a license grants the right to purchase season tickets for years to come. Sideline seats that had cost $15,000 have been reduced to $10,000. The Jets are moving into a new $1.6 billion stadium this season.